376 MR. BERKELEY ON HIMALAYAN A.LG2E. Appendix B. 



The Algge from lower localities are but few in number, and 

 some of these of very common forms. We have for instance from 

 the Granges, opposite Bijnour, a Batrachospermum and Conferva 

 crispata, the former purple below, with specimens of Chantransia, 

 exactly as they might occur in the Thames. The Conferva, or more 

 properly Cladophora, which occurs also under various forms, at higher 

 elevations, as in the neighbourhood of Simla and Iskardo, swarms with 

 little parasites, but of common or uninteresting species. In the 

 Bijnour specimens, these consist of common forms of Synedra, Meri- 

 dion circular e, and a Cynibella, on others from Dacca, there are about 

 three species of Synedra* a minute Navicula and OompTionema cur- 

 vatum. Nothing, in fact, can well be more European. One splendid 

 Alga, however, occurs at Eitcoree, in Behar, on the banks of nullahs, 

 which are dry in hot weather, forming a purple fleece of coarse woolly 

 hairs, which are singularly compressed, and of extreme beauty under 

 the microscope, from the crystalline green of the articulated string 

 which threads the bright red investing sheath. This curious Alga calls 

 to mind in its colouring Ccenocoleus SmitMi, figured in English Botany, 

 t. 2940, but it has not the common sheath of that Alga, and is on a 

 far larger scale. One or two other allied forms, or species, occur in 

 East Nepal, to which I purpose giving, together with the Behar 

 plant, the generic name of JErytJironema. Erom the Soane River, 

 also, is an interesting Alga, belonging to the curious genus 

 Thwaitesia, in which the division of the endochrome in the fertile 

 cells into four distinct masses, sometimes entirely free, is beautifully 

 marked. In some cases, indeed, instead of the ordinary spores, the 

 whole mass is broken up into numerous bodies, as in the fertile 

 joints of TJlotlirix, and probably, as in that case, the resultant cor- 

 puscles are endowed with active motion. In Silhet, again, is a mag- 

 nificent Zygnema, allied to Z. nitidum, with large oval spores, 

 about 2^3- part of an inch long, and a dark golden brown colour, and 

 containing a spiral green endochrome. 



Leaving, however, the lower parts of India, I shall first take the 

 species which occur in Khasia, Sikkim, Eastern Nepal, and the ad- 

 joining parts of Tibet. 



Two of these appear to be S. Vaucherice and S. incequalis. 



